Expert profile
Carl Zimmer
Science journalist and author
Aerobiology • evolutionary biology • virology • science communication
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About the expert
Focus: Communicating biology and infectious disease science to general audiences
Carl Zimmer is a long-time New York Times science columnist and author of over a dozen books on biology, evolution, and infectious disease. His 2025 book 'Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe' traces the centuries-long failure to understand airborne disease transmission and the institutional resistance that delayed correct framing during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Expert discussions with Carl Zimmer
Carl Zimmer: Air-Borne and the Big Miss With Covid
Many respiratory infections can travel through indoor air as small particles that linger and build up, not just as close-range droplets that fall within a few feet. Major institutions, including the WHO, were slow to accept that COVID-19 spreads this way, even though research on airborne infection goes back to the 1930s. Zimmer argues that clean indoor air could become a public-health priority in the way clean water did.